


Celebrating Writers: Season 2 of Supernatural

by yourlibrarian



Series: Celebrating Writers [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Review, Episode: s02e01 In My Time of Dying, Episode: s02e03 Bloodlust, Episode: s02e12 Nightshifter, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 20:37:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6769036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I decided to do a brief discussion of the episodes I thought were most impressive from a writing standpoint. They're not necessarily the most significant, or my favorite episodes (as there are some more flawed stories I quite enjoyed) but I do think they're the best put-together.</p><p>For S2 my three choices are:</p><p>Nightshifter (Ben Edlund)<br/>In My Time of Dying (Eric Kripke)<br/>Bloodlust (Sera Gamble)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Celebrating Writers: Season 2 of Supernatural

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted November 28, 2007

I decided to do a brief discussion of the episodes I thought were most impressive from a writing standpoint. They're not necessarily the most significant, or my favorite episodes (as there are some more flawed stories I quite enjoyed) but I do think they're the best put-together.

For S2 my three choices are:

Nightshifter (Ben Edlund)  
In My Time of Dying (Eric Kripke)  
Bloodlust (Sera Gamble)

In truth I think Nightshifter is the best written episode the series has had so far. Perhaps coincidentally, I also think Bad Day at Black Rock will be one of the three best episodes of S3 but it's too soon to write that post yet! 

For starters we have all the important elements of the show here. While on the face of it the bank heist framework is a little out of the ordinary, the real job as far as Sam and Dean are concerned is pretty typical. However I think that, aside from the novelty factor, the setting and elements of a standoff add a lot to both our understanding of Sam & Dean and the pressures they face. In reality this episode doesn't just have an A and B story, but a C story as well.

To me the B story is their interaction with Ronald and, by extension, the hostages. The shapeshifter is the C story. First, the shifter is a returning villain, and we don't learn anything new about it. Its purpose is mostly to get Ronald involved with the supernatural and to give Sam and Dean some reason to stay in the bank. It also doesn't really touch either of the other two storylines –- there's no special significance to it for Ronald (at least that we are privy to), and the A storyline, with Henriksen and the police, also doesn't get affected. Ronald is the B story because he sets up the A story by making Sam and Dean's plans go awry.

Henriksen, on the other hand, not only gets set up beautifully as a serious threat to the Winchesters, and in very short order, but we do learn some things about him. There are a lot of places that his storyline could go and we're left with those possibilities at the end of the episode. On a personal level, he's the character I've most wanted to see back on the series (besides some already recurring characters like Bobby and Ellen). 

The fact that there are three storylines occurring here already brings some complexity to the screen, especially since the A story doesn't even appear until halfway through the episode (perhaps one reason why the show opens the way it does). What is valuable is that we can see Sam and Dean showing us how they work and _being good at it_. They have failures. Sam's call not to tell Ronald the truth backfires. Then their belated effort to work with Ronald gets him killed. Dean gets himself on the news again and brings down a serious threat on their heads. They don't figure out the shapeshifter's moves very well, leading to another death, and they almost get caught.

What's important to me though, and what separates good writing from bad, is that these things don't occur because our heroes are stupid, the villain(s) is stupid, or some hanger-on is Jar-Jar Binks. In fact virtually everyone in the episode makes some smart moves, which is a good thing when Henriksen builds them up, Sam & Dean position themselves as different from Ron, and even the shapeshifter quickly catches on that these guys know what they're doing. You don't want to have people mentioning how good someone is at what they do when they're not showing it. 

While in developing their competence the writing satisfies our expectations, in other ways it keeps defying them. To begin with we have an unexpected opening. Sam & Dean's work is generally done in the shadows and our expectations here are to have some strange occurrence happen, some creature appear who will bring Sam & Dean to town. This is the way most teasers set us up. But that's not what happens. Instead we close on Dean's alarmed face. It's one of the first cues that this story is going to be all about people. Even the supernatural villain in this episode appears to be a person. 

Next we have the scene in the jewelry store. I really like that all through the episode the minor characters have something interesting to say. (The sole exceptions for me are the two female characters, but I'll talk about that later). The manager tells Sam a fairly interesting story about the shifter's last victim, and who she must have been when a guard died as a result of feeling compassion for her. I remain a bit mystified about why the jewelry got dumped, but what I think was significant about this is how this story ties into Ronald's mission to prove his friend innocent. This manager doesn't have Ronald's clues, but I could see him being ready to believe that Helena was innocent after all. Perhaps with Ronald's evidence and a greater willingness to think outside the box, he might have gone the same route. Ronald thinks about the issue, Ronald is passionate about it, and he trusts his own instincts. Beneath Ronald's nerdiness is someone with substance.

The clerk flirting with Dean is a bit of a twist too. Usually we've seen Dean hitting on the girl. Here she hits on him. But despite the pleasurable strokes to his ego, Dean is still focused on the job, just as he is later when he and Sam are watching the monitors. He enjoys it, but he doesn't lose his priorities. He also doesn't mind waving his victory in Sam's face either. It's a small moment, but fun.

I like that Dean says "No, they're doing our job, only they don't know it, so they suck at it." You put in a line like that in, it becomes important that your heroes show they don't suck. They don't and Ronald isn't a nutjob either. He asks to see ID, he's suspicious after his previous treatment, but he wants something to be done so he tries again. It's in his nature to level with people. Given his lack of knowledge and the sources he's drawing from, he's off-base but pretty close to the truth.

Sam's decision not to involve Ronald is both right and wrong. His reasoning is sound. Ronald is untrained, and overeager. He's likely to do something rash and inexperienced and get himself killed. (As we'll see later with Richie in Sin City, even knowing the business isn't enough). And he does. What Sam underestimates is Ronald's commitment. Dean says it himself: "He's not that different from you or me, people think we're crazy." I couldn't help thinking of John Winchester and how he started out, perhaps not that differently from Ronald. Only John was already a soldier and apparently stumbled upon experienced people early on. Both Sam and Dean fail to see that Ronald may be a civilian, but it's the drive that's important.

They next do their impersonation routine at the bank, giving a reasonable explanation of their reasons for being there. (They're probably believed a bit too easily but they have enough to worry about in this episode!) Then Ronald appears just as they discover the shifter, who has rather sensibly chosen to be the manager instead of a teller or salesperson this time. Sam & Dean have to win Ronald over, which he doesn't just roll over and accept. I liked the moment where the knife is pulled from Dean's leg. It really wasn't necessary. But the fact that Ronald thinks to have them searched and that Dean is always prepared with a weapon says something about the competence of both characters.

Another nice bit in this scene is the dividing line laid down between Ronald and the Winchesters. Ronald is an honest person. He not only laid out his knowledge and theories to Sam & Dean when he thought they were FBI, but he arrives at the bank announcing he's not there to rob them. (I love Ronald's line that "This is not a robbery! Everybody on the floor now!") He also calls Sam and Dean liars –- which they are. They lie constantly, every day. They lied to him, they lie to everyone in the bank, and interestingly enough, the thing they're after is the ultimate liar. The only person whom they are unable to lie to is Henriksen, which is what makes him so dangerous. 

Following is another small moment where expectations are defied. We see a policeman walk by, he seems to note something's off, but he doesn't come to the door and investigate. He walks on and we think they've gone unnoticed, only to see that the police are already camped out in front of the bank. 

On the one hand I think Sherry's little byplay of crushing on Dean was a moment of levity and allowed her to get some characterization. On the other, she's the second woman in this episode to do so and the only other one to get any lines (other than the reporter in the opening -– maybe she gushed about how cute Dean was off-camera). This seemed lazy to me.

By comparison the cops in the truck end up with some nice characterization, which is important for two reasons. Not only did it give them some dimension, but we're led to believe Detective Robards is going to be in charge of handling the bank crisis. He seems like a reasonable man who (it's later hinted) might very well have given Sam & Dean a break, realizing something was not right. That means we're surprised when Henriksen shows up, and Robards fades into the background.

What follows are scenes that provide some more distinctions between Dean and Ronald. Earlier, Dean imparted knowledge about shifters. Now he imparts it about the police, accurately laying out their situation. Ronald, overly focused on proving himself right, has not planned beyond his own goals. It's the weakness of his personal focus. Dean takes charge and Sam lets him, which sets up the Bonnie and Clyde line later. (Another nice bit is that, despite not seeming much of a threat, even the security guard gets competence points as Dean suspects he managed to get a call out to the police during the chaos). 

There's good tension in the next scene with Sam trying to "manage" both Ronald and the hostages as the phone rings. Ronald, again focused on his issues, can't seem to let go of the phone. As he did with Ronald, Sam prioritizes who needs to know the truth and when, and decides the police should know as little as possible. 

Whether it was a writing choice or a directing choice I'm not 100% sure, but I really like the way Ron's death is shot, with the sound gone. It ends up being more dramatic than Sam yelling, the gunshot sounding and the glass breaking. I also like the way that, despite how both are distressed by his death, Sam & Dean react to the important things immediately. Sam goes after the shifter, Dean grabs Ron's gun and gets the hostage out. Unfortunately what didn't occur to them, despite Sam's earlier reference to Dean's wanted status, is that it would have been better for them to switch roles. His mug on the news might not have bought Henriksen down on them. (On the other hand, he got there so improbably quickly, it probably wouldn't have mattered). 

Although there's something vaguely comedic about Sam or Dean having to round up hostages every other scene, in each case there's nothing improbable about it. The hostages were behaving just as one might expect, and if given the chance would run when either Ronald or the shifter was responsible for giving them the chance.

One thing I like about the briefly seen Robards is how he seems to parallel Dean in this episode. Both are guys just doing their job, dealing with unexpected turns in how they have to do it. He's just as unhappy at seeing the FBI turn up as Dean was seeing the police turn up. As well he should be. He gets just as mowed down as Dean does. What's also nice is how Henriksen defies everyone's expectations. He doesn't treat Robards with any consideration. We think at first that the FBI actually knows what's happening with the shifter, only to realize it's worse than that. Dean finds himself completely outgunned in being able to deal with him on the phone. Like Dean, the agent also knows when to dole out information and when not to. And whether he knows it or not he hits Dean's weak spot pretty quick. I liked this a lot because we see Henriksen trump Dean by being smart, informed and knowing how to play him –- not because Dean himself does anything wrong. He even manages to rein himself in about John after a moment. And of course Henriksen lies about the hour he gives them. He's not Ronald, he's John –- just as ruthless when he's on the hunt and the hunted object is something he thinks needs killing, and just as uninterested in making friends while he's doing it.

What comes next is one of my favorite exchanges:  
DEAN Hey. We've got a bit of a problem outside.  
SAM We've got a problem in here

To me this was one of the best examples in SPN of how Sam & Dean work as a team. And to me it works much better than the somewhat improbable psychic exchanges put forth in The Usual Suspects. They're each doing their part to handle things and finish the job without wasting time on anything unessential. Both are incredibly collected under considerable stress. And both are relying on one another to deal with the situation. The writing also wastes no time on having them get one another up to speed, just switches to the opening vault.

Here we get yet another nice mislead in the script. There's tension as Sherry comes out, we think she's the shifter. But no, and if not for Sam's logic, there would be another dead hostage. At the same time while Dean's a bit ruthless, his plan's not foolish. Make sure they're both dead and the problem's solved. The moment where Sherry faints and they both stand there trying to puzzle it out is wonderfully humorous. I really enjoy it when silence is used to comedic effect.

What followed is the one moment I thought was a writing blunder. If Sam simply helped Dean instead of getting Sherry away they'd surely have gotten the shifter under control then and there. What might have made more sense was to have her running screaming for the exits, which Sam would have tried to prevent to avoid having a repeat of Ronald's death.

Finally we get the more textbook examples of Dean and Sam being competent in hand-to-hand (and how nice is it to finally see Sam do this instead of being strangled?) There's another nice misdirect moment when disguised Sam comes upon Dean. I like that the shifter's corpse is commented on by the SWAT guy, who recognizes something's odd. Not only does it make Henriksen's single-mindedness more clear, but it makes the cops less stupid for not noticing. 

The closing bit is, of course, a lot of people's favorite part to this episode and it's nice that it's also done in silence but for the intermittent music. That minimalism is highlighted throughout the episode. There's very little obvious exposition here, or extraneous bits. It all slots together very well.

Just to recap, I mentioned at the beginning that I felt Ronald and the hostages were actually the B story. Their importance was largely to add the human element to a show which doesn't focus on it that much. It's a rare thing for Sam & Dean to have to deal with people, especially a large group of people. This makes sense since they're usually conning people or having to hide what they do. But while they come off as the professionals they claim to be, their lies unravel slowly over the episode. They start out lying to the jewelry store employees, then to Ronald, and then to the security guard. This all falls within their normal scope of operations. Once Ronald shows up, everything starts to fall apart. They have to level with him, the hostages keep getting out of control, and Henriksen wipes out any lies they could have told the police. They have to improvise their hunt, but they're not as good at improvising with people. 

Ronald tries to connect with everyone – them, the police, the hostages even. His passion is very personal. For Sam & Dean it's become very impersonal. Sam could have used that time in the vault with the hostages to connect and get them on their side, to trust him, maybe make that effort with the police too, but he doesn't. The less people know about them, the better. Reaching out generally isn't an option unless it's to serve an end. Dean tries briefly to do so with Sherry, to connect to her as another person. Not much after, he's about to stab a silver knife through her chest before Sam stops him. When she tells Sam that Dean's a hero he agrees, just as Dean says that about John. But it's doubtful anyone in this episode thinks of them that way at the end. Even Ronald probably wouldn't have. Had he lived, he likely would have been arrested and Sam & Dean would have left him behind to cover their escape. Ultimately what both the A and B story do is show us the reality of Sam & Dean's lives in a way we can relate to. It's hard to understand the threat of a killer clown or a poltergeist. We can relate more closely to a bank robbery, the threat of arrest, an unpredictable person ruining our work. For all these victims this was a serious event in their lives (a fatal one for some). For Sam & Dean, the hostage taking wasn't even the most important thing to happen in their day.

* * *

As with my choices in S1, these other two episodes are centered on the Winchesters, they're about human weakness (and an innocent MotW) and there is a philosophical underpinning to the episode. These are also stories that fit together well with few inconsistencies. 

IMToD is to me just the conclusion of the 4-part Winchester family arc begun in Dead Man's Blood, so unlike my top choice of Nightshifter, a lot of what succeeds in it relies on things covered in the entirety of S1. However considering where we were left in Devil's Trap I think that this S2 opener had a lot of expectations riding on it. I don't know how it was received by the fandom but I thought it did a great job of meeting them.

For starters, all the players in that arc are here –- Bobby, the YED, and of course the family. And as in all of my other top choices, the MotW is very secondary to the family storyline. However I think the Reaper is unique in that her role is very temporarily as any kind of evil supernatural being (we get to see the real one by the end of the episode). She's not only just doing her job, she's doing it with compassion. While there were hints earlier in this arc that there's more to the supernatural beings than meets the eye, here is where we really see a justification of that. Given that Dean seemed about to go with her before he was cured, I have to wonder how much more quickly he would have gone had he had any clue what John was up to in the meantime. 

And that seemed to me the theme of the episode -– the things we don't understand about and can't communicate to those closest to us, no matter how well we know them and how much we care. We have a very obvious visual metaphor of that with Dean being literally unable to communicate with anyone. The one person he does manage to talk to he's not really communicating with either. She knows what's going on with him, but he doesn't know the same about her, at least not at first. By the end Dean has begun to listen, really listen, to her. And then he comes back and forgets it all.

I couldn't help thinking how often people do that in general, forget what we've heard. John had said back in "Dead Man's Blood" that he would rather be dead than lose either of his sons as he'd lost Mary. Yet both Sam and Dean berate him for "doing nothing" when it looks like they're going to lose Dean. Sam thinks his father is off on his revenge crusade when he asks for the Colt and the summoning ingredients. He misunderstood his father in the cabin and he does it again here. 

Despite what John told him in DMB about how he just wanted to keep Sam safe, and Sam admits "We're not so different," he fails to think about why his father might be so desperate for Sam to shoot him. He's terrified that he'll have to watch his kids die, perhaps by his own hand. What could possibly be worse? He's willing to do whatever he must to protect them. And I think that's the real message Dean doesn't get from him at the end. If Sam can't be saved he may have to be killed, because what will happen to _him_ otherwise will be worse. John thinks Sam being dead will be better than Sam being in hell. As John is about to face that fate himself, I don't think he's thinking of the good of the world. He's thinking of what he wants for his sons -- and that's not it. While John's silent words in Dean's ear are a nice way of creating a mysterious plotline, it's also a good metaphor. People are still saying things to one another that the other doesn't really hear. 

It's very characteristic of Sam that he does the most to communicate with other people. He's the one who tells Bobby that the Impala must be saved, despite the cost (in my fanwank they salvaged John's truck –- and thus got his cell phone in ELaC -– and sold it to pay for the Impala's repairs). He argues with his father about, well, everything but he does make his position clear –- a skill John doesn't seem to have ever mastered given his falling out with everyone. And Sam manages an imperfect way to speak with Dean after he senses Dean's efforts to make his presence known. I really liked the use of the ouija board rather than Sam just managing to hear or see Dean. I thought it was a great visual symbol of how much can get lost in translation when we try to communicate. Later when Sam is researching the Reaper he doesn't even know he's given Dean the clue he needs, just like we often have no idea how our words have been taken by someone else.

One thing IMToD does share with Nightshifter is that it's an episode whose pieces come together pretty well. This episode also has A, B and C stories and all are focused on returning Dean –- Dean and the Reaper, John and the YED, and Sam as the go-between. I find it rather amusing though that the man who's so into the horror aspects of the show is the one who writes a story with almost no horror element. Instead, the episode focuses on the human condition and how we remain so isolated from one another even in the closest of relationships. 

I had a difficult time deciding between Bloodlust and Crossroads because to me the two are very similar stories. In both cases we have (1) Dean learning something about himself from the MotW (2) John's legacy (3) Sam and Dean at odds over the central theme of salvation and forgiveness. Of the two, however, my choice would be Bloodlust because I find it more broadly applicable to the SPNverse. 

Bloodlust is a well-executed story. We start out with the joy of the Metallicar back on the road and lead into a quite funny interview scene that sets up the mystery. It's good to have this beginning because it establishes that Sam and Dean are ok with one another before we start seeing that Dean isn't too ok with himself. We have the nice twist of the hunter being the actual monster, and we have a grayer world after the episode.

Gordon seems at first to be a mirror for Dean, saying what he doesn't. Gordon wants to go the job alone. Dean would probably prefer that right now, but he knows he needs to keep an eye on Sam, so that's not an option. Gordon wants to lose himself in his work, and so does Dean –- anything rather than think about what's on his mind. It's the fact that Sam won't leave him alone rather than anything he says that causes Dean to lash out at him. But Dean has repeatedly said that he believes what he can see with his own two eyes. He needs to see, not hear things. It's when he sees Lenore pull herself back and refuse to hurt Sam, even as Gordon is hurting them both, that he knows he's been wrong about a lot of assumptions in his life. John's life, and the things he's passed down to Dean, are now in question. While it seems like a breakthrough in that Dean's world is a little wider, it's also a rather cruel blow. In these times of uncertainty Dean's going through, he doesn't need shakier ground beneath his feet. One more support has just been yanked out from under him. 

What Dean doesn't get, of course, is that everyone is worthy of being saved, whether it's a vampire who has tried to change their nature, or a son who loved his father. Sam's always known this, but it's something Dean doesn't believe about himself and in turn he often fails to extend that belief to others. I think this may be a telling matter in S3 where Sam has decided to turn that forgiveness off. Having been sacrificed for several times now, perhaps he no longer feels he is worth the price others are paying.


End file.
